He officially joined the club on March 1, 2010 after stints as executive director for Tottenham Hotspur, commercial director for The Football Association and head of European operations for communications giant Ogilvy & Mather.

On paper, his Vancouver assignment always looked like a two or three-year gig that would boost his resume before moving back to the U.K. for a bigger job in English football.

Obviously that could have changed and he might have chosen to stay longer but his decision to move on fits a pattern.

Barber wouldn’t reveal his new job but said he’s “almost certainly” not staying in North America.

“I’ve got a couple of opportunities that I want to pursue, which I can’t really talk about,” he said in an interview. “I feel it’s the right time for me to take on the next challenge.”

Barber said he always intended to reflect on his position in Vancouver after two years and met with club owners last week to discuss his departure.

“The best time to reflect in sport is in the post-season,” he said. “You have better perspective and you’re not caught up in the day-to-day madness of match after match and situation after situation.”

Barber feels he accomplished most of the key goals club owners set for him when he accepted the job in Vancouver – manage the transition to Major League Soccer, help the club move into two different stadiums, re-establish the Whitecaps brand, build a strong fan base and attract strong corporate sponsors.

Give Barber his due. With sponsors such as Bell, BMO and EA, the Whitecaps enjoy one of the strongest corporate sponsoship programs in MLS.

League commissioner Don Garber once called the Bell/Whitecaps deal one of the richest in North American sports.

“The club is in fantastic shape for the future and I’m very, very proud to have been a small part of that,” Barber said.

He regrets the club’s dismal on-field performance this year and its inability to complete a deal to build a new training centre in Metro Vancouver, likely in Burnaby or at UBC.

But he expects the team will improve next season under new head coach Martin Rennie and that a training centre deal will be completed soon.

Barber said change is a function of modern business and sport and the Whitecaps front office is more than capable of handling his departure.

Expect chief operating officer Rachel Lewis to pick up most of the business load while president Bob Lenarduzzi continues to head the technical team and handle more speaking engagements and meetings with existing or potential sponsors.

Barber was a key factor in the recent signing of Korean defender Young-Pyo Lee, as Lee’s agent – who knew Barber from when Lee played in Tottenham – contacted Barber to assess the Whitecaps’ possible interest.

Barber said he will continue to be an ambassador for the Whitecaps, “even from afar.”

“I will continue to help the club where I can,” he said. “If I hear of good players who might be interested in MLS, I will definitely recommend Vancouver. My heart is still very much here and the Whitecaps will always be a special club to me, as Tottenham has been in the past and is now.”

Whitecaps part-owner Jeff Mallett, who helped recruit Barber to Vancouver, said he never expected Barber would remain with the Caps for “five, 10 or 20 years.”

“CEOs come and CEOs go,” he said. “It’s really the nature of it . . . Our current ownership group – Greg [Kerfoot] and myself – we’re going to be here 30/40 years from now.”

With the club now employing its third MLS head coach and the CEO leaving after just one season in the big league of North American soccer, Lenarduzzi understands why some observers might question the organization’s stability.

“But I’ve been here since the beginning and we don’t have a track record of instability,” he said. “We’re prepared to make difficult decisions and now I hope there is a certain stability there on the technical side and on the business side.”

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